Don't Ever Leave Me - part 2
Don’t Ever Leave Me
Part 2
It turned out Ianto didn’t have any aspirin, but Jack did find some paracetamol. As he’d expected Ianto’s house was spotless and very tidy. It was an unremarkable, relatively modern, terraced, two bedroomed house, in among similar houses. While Ianto took his bath, Jack had the chance to explore a little and see what he could learn about one Ianto Jones that he didn’t already know. The kitchen looked new, probably put in by the previous owners to help sell the place, apart from a microwave, kettle, toaster and espresso machine there was nothing on the counter top, it looked like a show home - until you opened up a cupboard of two. Ianto Jones, it turned out, had a well stocked and well equipped kitchen. The living room was painted in a what had to be builder’s magnolia and with the beige carpet and cream leather sofas it could have been very bland, but the curtains were a deep red, the cushions a variety of reds and burgundies, the coffee table and book shelf were a deep mahogany colour. Jack liked this room, it was warm and comfortable while still being masculine, a little too tidy, but he could live with that.
**Live with it?!** Where the hell did that come from he wondered? This was Ianto’s place, not his, he lived at the Hub, in what could at best be described as a luxury cell, but it was home, his home, had been for over a hundred years - on and off. Distracting himself, he took a look at the pictures, ornaments and books on the shelves and walls. On one shelf there were some family pictures in small fames and a pewter tankard engraved with Ianto’s name and a date - his eighteenth birthday. The pictures on the walls were mostly watercolours, or at least good prints, all depicting what looked like the Welsh coast. Wandering upstairs he found a small room, which while it had a bed in it, was clearly being used as home office and housed a desk, computer and small filing cabinet, on the walls were framed prints of old film posters, and from the look of them they were originals, not reproduction. At the back of the house was the master bedroom - Jack hesitated, did he have the right - but then Ianto had been in his bedroom often enough, so he walked in. It was painted in the same magnolia as every other room, there were more film posters on the walls. Beside the bed, which was perfectly made, with very smart and expansive looking burgundy linen, there was a huge built in wardrobe with mirrored doors and on the wall opposite it, a plasma TV, below which there was a DVD player. On the shelves that flanked the screen were rows and rows of DVDs, mostly older films, all neatly arranged in alphabetical order.
The sound of splashing and water being let out, reminded Jack why he was really there. With a lightness of foot and a speed that belied a man of his size, he was back downstairs and in the kitchen. By the time he was coming back up with a jug of iced water and a glass, Ianto was out of the bath and standing at the top of the stairs. Dressed in a pair of what looked like black silk pyjama bottoms and with water still glistening in his hair, it was a vision that caught Jack off guard and he gasped before he could stop himself.
Ianto didn’t seem to notice. “You’re still here,” he stated, somewhat surprised.
“Of course, I told you I was going to take care of you. Come on, into bed, lots of rest and fluids that’s what the doctor ordered.”
Ianto gave him a sad look. “Owen never said that, mostly he just ‘stop complaining and have a drink’.”
“I know, but if he was here now and could see you, he’d have said it. Come on, you look dead on your feet.”
“So do you.”
“Yeah, but I’m not sick.”
Ianto looked as if he wanted to deny his infirmity, but the evidence against him was too great. Resigned to his fate he began to shuffle toward the bedroom.
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever get sick?”
“No, not since…”
“Since you became immortal.”
“Well not if you don’t count dying, that kind of takes it out of you sometimes.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“I like these.” Jack indicated Ianto’s nightwear. “Silk?”
“Of course, never wear man-made fibres next to the skin.”
“Your father teach you that?”
“He did.”
“We’ll have to explore their possibilities another day.”
Ianto smiled as he slid gratefully into bed. “I’ll look forward to that.”
<><><><><><><>
Jack knew he should go back to the Hub, but he just couldn’t do it, he needed to stay here, for Ianto, just in case. So he checked his messages and took the portable rift activity locator - the one Ianto had brought with him when he joined - out of the car and settled down to spend the night on the bed in the other room. He never slept much, he didn’t need sleep anymore, but if he was tired enough, drunk enough or just had sex, then he slept. Logically he knew he drank too much, the cognac and scotch in his office decanters needed replenishing too often, but when the alcohol can’t hurt you and it lets you get the sleep you crave, but can’t get, it’s too tempting. Of course sex was just as good a sedative and a lot more fun. Tonight he didn’t need booze or sex, he was tired enough. Waking around six and unable to get back to sleep, he lay there for more than an hour before he headed down the landing to the master bedroom, just to reassure himself that Ianto was okay. Easing open the bedroom door he looked around it, expecting to find his lover sleeping peacefully.
Ianto was curled in a ball, drenched in perspiration, his face a mask of pain.
“What the hell!” Jack exclaimed as he ran in.
“Jack? You came back.”
Jack sank to his knees beside the bed. “I never left - what’s the matter?”
“It hurts,” Ianto gasped out.
“What hurts?”
“Everything, it hurts so much.”
His hand shaking Jack reached out and touched Ianto’s cheek, last night it had just been warm, now it was hot, really hot.
“I’m coming back, okay? In just a few moments I’ll be back - Ianto?”
Blue-grey, expressive eyes, blood shot, red rimmed and filled with pain, turned to him, pleading not to be left alone.
“Don’t leave me.”
“I’m not leaving, I’ll come back, very soon, just… hang on.”
Not waiting for a response, Jack ran from the room and sprinted downstairs. As fast as possible, he pulled the car around to the front of the house, started the engine and opened the door, then he ran back up stairs.
“I’m back,” he announced as he ran into the bedroom.
Ianto managed a ghost of a smile.
“Time to get you to hospital.” With that, and before Ianto could argue, Jack had wrapped him in the towelling robe from the back of the door and lifted him into his arms.
“No, I can walk, I’m too heavy,” Ianto protested.
“No you’re not, just let me take care of you.”
Too sick and in too much pain to argue, Ianto just lay his head against Jack’s chest and closed his eyes. Unable to sit in the front of the car, he lay down and curled up on the back seat. The next thing he knew he was back in Jacks arms and Jack was shouting.
“Help! I need some help here!”
Strangers crowded around them, strange hands touched him, he didn’t like it, all he wanted was for Jack to hold him and keep him safe.
“Okay sir, lets get him on the trolley,” someone said.
Jack made to put him down, he didn’t want that so he just held on all the harder and buried his face in Jack’s shirt.
“Sir we have to examine him,” the voice insisted.
“I know, just give me a moment. Ianto?” Jack’s voice was soft and comforting. “Come on, let go, I’ll be right here, I’m not leaving you.” He didn’t want to let go, but he knew he’d have to, eventually. “Trust me.” Jack’s voice was so comforting. “Please.” Slowly he uncurled his fingers. “That’s it, let the doctor help you.”
“Owen?” Ianto asked hopefully, maybe it was all a dream, maybe he’d been really, really sick and had a nightmare.
“I’m sorry.” Jack’s voice was full of sadness.
“I want it to be Owen.”
“You know that can never happen.”
“Who’s Owen?” the stranger asked.
“A friend of ours, a doctor, he was killed a few days ago,” Jack told the man.
So it wasn’t a nightmare, it was real and they were both dead, he tried to tighten his grip
again on Jack.
“Trust me,” Jack reiterated as he peeled his fingers away, and then, without letting go of Ianto’s right hand, lay him down on the trolley. “I’ll be right here.”
“What’s his name?” the doctor asked.
“Jones, Ianto Jones,” Jack told him.
<><><><><><><>
It took a while for the doctors to take a history, mostly from Jack, in the meantime Ianto was moved to a side room and a real bed. They put in an IV and gave him fluids and painkillers. By the time they were though poking, prodding and sticking things in him, the painkiller had taken effect and he’d fallen asleep.
“And you’re sure it was only seventeen hours between you being in the sewers and the first sign of fever?” the doctor, whose name was Williams, asked again.
“Yeah, might have been less, wasn’t longer,” Jack confirmed. “Why?”
“When you said you’ve been in the sewers, with his symptoms, Weil’s disease is the most likely cause, but I’ve never heard of it coming on this fast. According to the texts there have been cases of early symptoms after only twenty four hours, but that was in people who’d received a massive amount of bacterium in the first place.”
“You’re losing me, what is this thing?”
“A disease spread by rats, usually when you come into contact with water infected with their urine. We did find a deep scratch on the back of his left leg.”
“What?” Jack lifted the blanket.
“It’s odd, it almost looks like something clawed at it,” Dr Williams commented.
Jack had a sudden flash back to the sewers. They had been placing a force-field generator, one of Tosh’s best inventions. Disguised as an old car battery, it emitted a low grade force-field, just enough to give a weevil a nasty shock, a lot like an electrical fence. It was set too high to affect the rats and came equipped with a light detector, which shut it down if there was any light at all, sewer workers carry lights, weevils don’t. In addition, if moved more than a few centimetres it shut itself down and sent out a GPS locator beacon. So far they had only placed them in the main sewers leading out of the city, just in case the resident weevil population decided to migrate. This one would quickly dissuade them from visiting this location again. Ianto had been placing it when a weevil came out of nowhere and made a lunge for him. Jack had thought he’d got away in time, he’d said he was okay.
“Sir?” the doctor tried to get Jack attention.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry but just who are you? Are you a relative?”
“Jack Harkness, I’m his boss, and…” His hand reached out again for Ianto’s, interlacing their fingers.
“And?”
Jack looked up. “And…”
“Something more?” Williams suggested.
“Something more,” Jack agreed. “Could it be anything else?”
“I could be any number of things. Are there any relatives you can contact?”
“They live overseas. What happens now?”
“He’s going to have some more tests and then a scan. We’ve sent a blood sample to Hereford, there’s a specialist Weil’s lab there, shouldn’t take more than two hours by courier and they’ll give us the results in 24 hours, in the meantime we’ll do our own tests here. Unless the scan shows us something definite, like say appendicitis, we’ll treat him with a broad spectrum Penicillin based antibiotic, pain killers, fluids and monitor him.” The doctor looked back at his patient. “There isn’t much more we can do. I’m having him moved to the isolation.”
“Isolation?”
“Until we know for sure, we have to assume it’s contagious. You can’t stay.”
“I‘m not leaving him, I promised.”
“You could be in danger.”
“I think it’s a bit late for that; besides I’m not gonna get sick, I never get sick.”
“Never?”
“Not ever, trust me. Besides, if I have got it, you don’t want me out there spreading it about - right?”
“I guess.”
While Ianto was undergoing scans Jack commandeered a phone and called Martha, if this did have something to do with the weevils he needed a doctor who would understand the problem, but try as he might he couldn’t reach her. He tried UNIT, but they claimed they had no idea where she was. Frustrated, he ‘borrowed’ a computer and did the obvious thing and Googled Weil’s disease - it didn’t make pleasant reading.
<><><><><><><>
Part 3
Part 2
It turned out Ianto didn’t have any aspirin, but Jack did find some paracetamol. As he’d expected Ianto’s house was spotless and very tidy. It was an unremarkable, relatively modern, terraced, two bedroomed house, in among similar houses. While Ianto took his bath, Jack had the chance to explore a little and see what he could learn about one Ianto Jones that he didn’t already know. The kitchen looked new, probably put in by the previous owners to help sell the place, apart from a microwave, kettle, toaster and espresso machine there was nothing on the counter top, it looked like a show home - until you opened up a cupboard of two. Ianto Jones, it turned out, had a well stocked and well equipped kitchen. The living room was painted in a what had to be builder’s magnolia and with the beige carpet and cream leather sofas it could have been very bland, but the curtains were a deep red, the cushions a variety of reds and burgundies, the coffee table and book shelf were a deep mahogany colour. Jack liked this room, it was warm and comfortable while still being masculine, a little too tidy, but he could live with that.
**Live with it?!** Where the hell did that come from he wondered? This was Ianto’s place, not his, he lived at the Hub, in what could at best be described as a luxury cell, but it was home, his home, had been for over a hundred years - on and off. Distracting himself, he took a look at the pictures, ornaments and books on the shelves and walls. On one shelf there were some family pictures in small fames and a pewter tankard engraved with Ianto’s name and a date - his eighteenth birthday. The pictures on the walls were mostly watercolours, or at least good prints, all depicting what looked like the Welsh coast. Wandering upstairs he found a small room, which while it had a bed in it, was clearly being used as home office and housed a desk, computer and small filing cabinet, on the walls were framed prints of old film posters, and from the look of them they were originals, not reproduction. At the back of the house was the master bedroom - Jack hesitated, did he have the right - but then Ianto had been in his bedroom often enough, so he walked in. It was painted in the same magnolia as every other room, there were more film posters on the walls. Beside the bed, which was perfectly made, with very smart and expansive looking burgundy linen, there was a huge built in wardrobe with mirrored doors and on the wall opposite it, a plasma TV, below which there was a DVD player. On the shelves that flanked the screen were rows and rows of DVDs, mostly older films, all neatly arranged in alphabetical order.
The sound of splashing and water being let out, reminded Jack why he was really there. With a lightness of foot and a speed that belied a man of his size, he was back downstairs and in the kitchen. By the time he was coming back up with a jug of iced water and a glass, Ianto was out of the bath and standing at the top of the stairs. Dressed in a pair of what looked like black silk pyjama bottoms and with water still glistening in his hair, it was a vision that caught Jack off guard and he gasped before he could stop himself.
Ianto didn’t seem to notice. “You’re still here,” he stated, somewhat surprised.
“Of course, I told you I was going to take care of you. Come on, into bed, lots of rest and fluids that’s what the doctor ordered.”
Ianto gave him a sad look. “Owen never said that, mostly he just ‘stop complaining and have a drink’.”
“I know, but if he was here now and could see you, he’d have said it. Come on, you look dead on your feet.”
“So do you.”
“Yeah, but I’m not sick.”
Ianto looked as if he wanted to deny his infirmity, but the evidence against him was too great. Resigned to his fate he began to shuffle toward the bedroom.
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever get sick?”
“No, not since…”
“Since you became immortal.”
“Well not if you don’t count dying, that kind of takes it out of you sometimes.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“I like these.” Jack indicated Ianto’s nightwear. “Silk?”
“Of course, never wear man-made fibres next to the skin.”
“Your father teach you that?”
“He did.”
“We’ll have to explore their possibilities another day.”
Ianto smiled as he slid gratefully into bed. “I’ll look forward to that.”
<><><><><><><>
Jack knew he should go back to the Hub, but he just couldn’t do it, he needed to stay here, for Ianto, just in case. So he checked his messages and took the portable rift activity locator - the one Ianto had brought with him when he joined - out of the car and settled down to spend the night on the bed in the other room. He never slept much, he didn’t need sleep anymore, but if he was tired enough, drunk enough or just had sex, then he slept. Logically he knew he drank too much, the cognac and scotch in his office decanters needed replenishing too often, but when the alcohol can’t hurt you and it lets you get the sleep you crave, but can’t get, it’s too tempting. Of course sex was just as good a sedative and a lot more fun. Tonight he didn’t need booze or sex, he was tired enough. Waking around six and unable to get back to sleep, he lay there for more than an hour before he headed down the landing to the master bedroom, just to reassure himself that Ianto was okay. Easing open the bedroom door he looked around it, expecting to find his lover sleeping peacefully.
Ianto was curled in a ball, drenched in perspiration, his face a mask of pain.
“What the hell!” Jack exclaimed as he ran in.
“Jack? You came back.”
Jack sank to his knees beside the bed. “I never left - what’s the matter?”
“It hurts,” Ianto gasped out.
“What hurts?”
“Everything, it hurts so much.”
His hand shaking Jack reached out and touched Ianto’s cheek, last night it had just been warm, now it was hot, really hot.
“I’m coming back, okay? In just a few moments I’ll be back - Ianto?”
Blue-grey, expressive eyes, blood shot, red rimmed and filled with pain, turned to him, pleading not to be left alone.
“Don’t leave me.”
“I’m not leaving, I’ll come back, very soon, just… hang on.”
Not waiting for a response, Jack ran from the room and sprinted downstairs. As fast as possible, he pulled the car around to the front of the house, started the engine and opened the door, then he ran back up stairs.
“I’m back,” he announced as he ran into the bedroom.
Ianto managed a ghost of a smile.
“Time to get you to hospital.” With that, and before Ianto could argue, Jack had wrapped him in the towelling robe from the back of the door and lifted him into his arms.
“No, I can walk, I’m too heavy,” Ianto protested.
“No you’re not, just let me take care of you.”
Too sick and in too much pain to argue, Ianto just lay his head against Jack’s chest and closed his eyes. Unable to sit in the front of the car, he lay down and curled up on the back seat. The next thing he knew he was back in Jacks arms and Jack was shouting.
“Help! I need some help here!”
Strangers crowded around them, strange hands touched him, he didn’t like it, all he wanted was for Jack to hold him and keep him safe.
“Okay sir, lets get him on the trolley,” someone said.
Jack made to put him down, he didn’t want that so he just held on all the harder and buried his face in Jack’s shirt.
“Sir we have to examine him,” the voice insisted.
“I know, just give me a moment. Ianto?” Jack’s voice was soft and comforting. “Come on, let go, I’ll be right here, I’m not leaving you.” He didn’t want to let go, but he knew he’d have to, eventually. “Trust me.” Jack’s voice was so comforting. “Please.” Slowly he uncurled his fingers. “That’s it, let the doctor help you.”
“Owen?” Ianto asked hopefully, maybe it was all a dream, maybe he’d been really, really sick and had a nightmare.
“I’m sorry.” Jack’s voice was full of sadness.
“I want it to be Owen.”
“You know that can never happen.”
“Who’s Owen?” the stranger asked.
“A friend of ours, a doctor, he was killed a few days ago,” Jack told the man.
So it wasn’t a nightmare, it was real and they were both dead, he tried to tighten his grip
again on Jack.
“Trust me,” Jack reiterated as he peeled his fingers away, and then, without letting go of Ianto’s right hand, lay him down on the trolley. “I’ll be right here.”
“What’s his name?” the doctor asked.
“Jones, Ianto Jones,” Jack told him.
<><><><><><><>
It took a while for the doctors to take a history, mostly from Jack, in the meantime Ianto was moved to a side room and a real bed. They put in an IV and gave him fluids and painkillers. By the time they were though poking, prodding and sticking things in him, the painkiller had taken effect and he’d fallen asleep.
“And you’re sure it was only seventeen hours between you being in the sewers and the first sign of fever?” the doctor, whose name was Williams, asked again.
“Yeah, might have been less, wasn’t longer,” Jack confirmed. “Why?”
“When you said you’ve been in the sewers, with his symptoms, Weil’s disease is the most likely cause, but I’ve never heard of it coming on this fast. According to the texts there have been cases of early symptoms after only twenty four hours, but that was in people who’d received a massive amount of bacterium in the first place.”
“You’re losing me, what is this thing?”
“A disease spread by rats, usually when you come into contact with water infected with their urine. We did find a deep scratch on the back of his left leg.”
“What?” Jack lifted the blanket.
“It’s odd, it almost looks like something clawed at it,” Dr Williams commented.
Jack had a sudden flash back to the sewers. They had been placing a force-field generator, one of Tosh’s best inventions. Disguised as an old car battery, it emitted a low grade force-field, just enough to give a weevil a nasty shock, a lot like an electrical fence. It was set too high to affect the rats and came equipped with a light detector, which shut it down if there was any light at all, sewer workers carry lights, weevils don’t. In addition, if moved more than a few centimetres it shut itself down and sent out a GPS locator beacon. So far they had only placed them in the main sewers leading out of the city, just in case the resident weevil population decided to migrate. This one would quickly dissuade them from visiting this location again. Ianto had been placing it when a weevil came out of nowhere and made a lunge for him. Jack had thought he’d got away in time, he’d said he was okay.
“Sir?” the doctor tried to get Jack attention.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry but just who are you? Are you a relative?”
“Jack Harkness, I’m his boss, and…” His hand reached out again for Ianto’s, interlacing their fingers.
“And?”
Jack looked up. “And…”
“Something more?” Williams suggested.
“Something more,” Jack agreed. “Could it be anything else?”
“I could be any number of things. Are there any relatives you can contact?”
“They live overseas. What happens now?”
“He’s going to have some more tests and then a scan. We’ve sent a blood sample to Hereford, there’s a specialist Weil’s lab there, shouldn’t take more than two hours by courier and they’ll give us the results in 24 hours, in the meantime we’ll do our own tests here. Unless the scan shows us something definite, like say appendicitis, we’ll treat him with a broad spectrum Penicillin based antibiotic, pain killers, fluids and monitor him.” The doctor looked back at his patient. “There isn’t much more we can do. I’m having him moved to the isolation.”
“Isolation?”
“Until we know for sure, we have to assume it’s contagious. You can’t stay.”
“I‘m not leaving him, I promised.”
“You could be in danger.”
“I think it’s a bit late for that; besides I’m not gonna get sick, I never get sick.”
“Never?”
“Not ever, trust me. Besides, if I have got it, you don’t want me out there spreading it about - right?”
“I guess.”
While Ianto was undergoing scans Jack commandeered a phone and called Martha, if this did have something to do with the weevils he needed a doctor who would understand the problem, but try as he might he couldn’t reach her. He tried UNIT, but they claimed they had no idea where she was. Frustrated, he ‘borrowed’ a computer and did the obvious thing and Googled Weil’s disease - it didn’t make pleasant reading.
<><><><><><><>
Part 3